A 53-year-old woman has died weeks after she was hospitalized with injuries suffered at her own home, and police plan to add a murder charge against the man she was dating. Sara Estep was taken to the hospital on September 5 by her boyfriend, 51-year-old Nathaniel G. Wilkins, for injuries she suffered at their home on Arlington Avenue. She died in the hospital on October 16, and a coroner ruled her death a homicide five days later, on October 21.
According to NBC4, Columbus police said they will add a murder charge against Wilkins now that Estep's death has been ruled a homicide. Wilkins was arrested and charged not long after Estep was hospitalized in September, and he pleaded not guilty to felonious assault on September 22. He also faces charges of strangulation or suffocation and domestic violence, per the same report.
Jail Records Detail Bond and Release Conditions
Court records cited in the report show Wilkins is being held on a $10,000 recognizance bond, with a $750,000 surety bond owed if he fails to show up for court hearings. If he were released, he would be placed on house arrest and barred from possessing a firearm, the same records indicate. Jail records show Wilkins remains in a Franklin County jail.
The report also notes that Wilkins had previously attempted to fix up homes and buildings in North Linden. A 2013 Columbus Dispatch partner report on that vacant-property work identified Estep as his long-term girlfriend at the time, a detail that underscores how long the two were connected before this year's events.
Case Adds to Rising Domestic-Violence Toll in Columbus
Estep's death lands amid a grim local tally: Columbus police have recorded 18 domestic-violence-related homicides so far this year and have responded to more than 15,000 domestic-violence calls for service, according to a separate NBC4 report. Franklin County has only one domestic-violence shelter, run by Lutheran Social Services CHOICES, the station notes.
The local numbers mirror a statewide trend. The Ohio Domestic Violence Network reported that Ohio suffered 157 domestic-violence fatalities in the year ending June 30, 2025, the highest number since the organization began its annual report, and a 37 percent jump from the 114 fatalities recorded the previous year. The network also said nearly half of domestic-violence-related fatalities in the last two years happened while the victim was trying to leave the relationship, and it logged the second-highest number of intimate-partner-related fatalities on record for 2025-2026.
The Ohio Domestic Violence Network's data shows guns were used in 144 of the 157 statewide fatalities, or 84 percent, and that 40 of the cases involved murder-suicides, with four additional attempted murder-suicides. More than two-thirds of the victims in those cases had prior contact with the criminal or civil justice systems, and 36 children were present when a killing took place, leaving 92 children without one or both parents, according to the network's findings.
Ohio law addresses some of the conduct Wilkins is charged with directly. Under Ohio Revised Code Section 2903.18, causing or creating a substantial risk of physical harm to another by means of strangulation or suffocation is addressed as its own offense, while Section 2919.251 directs courts to weigh a person's history of domestic violence or other violent acts, along with the severity of alleged violence including serious physical injury or strangulation, when assessing domestic-violence-related cases.
